The strategy committee decided to move forward and spends the next few months in painstaking planning. Abernathy and King focus on the necessary fundraising especially in the northern cities, Shuttlesworth continues building support among community leaders in Birmingham, and Walker compiles detailed notes on the distance between meeting location and sit-in targets, creates lists of willing participants and organizes training meetings. During the training meetings King instructs demonstrators on the philosophy of nonviolence.

Wednesday, April 3 rd,1963 marks the beginning of Project C. Starting their march from the Sixteenth Baptist Church, the headquarters of training meetings and strategy sessions, sixty-five activists marched silently to the stores of Loveman’s, Pizitz, Kress, Woolworth’s and Britt’s and sat at their segregated lunch counters. At four of the five stores, waitresses simply informed customers that they were closing and turned out the lights. Only one store Britt’s demanded that police arrest the protestors.

Your campaign is not off to a ground shattering first day. Recent developments include the following;

• As a result of recent city elections, a new mayor has been elected, Albert Boutwell. Many residents and leaders of the community, both white and black, suggest giving the new mayor a chance to reform the government.
• While numbers are slowly growing, volunteers to willingly go to jail are low.
• Although over 100 demonstrators are in jail as a result of their civil disobedience, the national and local news is ignoring the story.
• Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General, criticizes the campaign as “ill-timed”.
• The New York Times is giving the story back page coverage. The headlines read “Integration Drive Slows… Sit-Ins and a demonstration Plan Fail to Materialize… Demonstrations Fail to Develop.”